1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to computer system and, more particularly, to improved features for housings of computer systems.
2. Description of the Related Art
All computing devices, including portable computers and desktop computers, have housings that encloses the components and circuitry of the computing devices. These housings are known to include various ports (e.g., parallel port, serial port, audio port, PC-Card slot) at their periphery to allow external devices to electrically couple to the computing devices. Access to the various ports is normally provided by associated connectors or slots that are provided as the periphery of the housings. The external devices that electrically couple to these ports typically do so with plugs or cards that mate with the connectors or slots. One disadvantage with the conventional use of such connectors or slots is that they are not easily located. Another disadvantage is that it is often difficult for users to determine whether proper connections have been made upon inserting the mating plugs or cards into the connectors or slots.
Computing devices are also known to make use of a touch pad (or track pad) as an input device to the computing devices. With portable computers, a palm rest portion of the base housing for the portable computers is often provided with a touch pad. Conventionally, touch pads have been attached with a bracket structure to the inside surface of the base housing such that the touch pad is held in place from the inside of the base housing and made accessible through an opening in the palm rest.
Unfortunately, the conventional approaches to attaching the touch pad to the base housing lead to problems. One problem with conventional approaches is that assembly is difficult because the touch pad is assembled and held in place from the inside of the base housing (i.e., from the underside of the palm rest). Another problem with conventional approaches is that the touch pad is necessarily recessed below the top surface of the palm rest by the thickness of the base housing at the palm rest which tends to make its use by users more difficult.
Also, as base housings get thinner and lighter, the base housings unfortunately get more flexible and thus less stiff. This even more true with base housings that provide industrial design features into the base housings because non-rectangular structures often associated with modern industrial designs offer even less rigidity. While internal ridges have been used to increase strength, recent designs are not always amenable to providing for internal ribs. For example, when there is limited space inside the housing the ribs may not provide the desired stiffness. Furthermore, in some applications, particularly around sensitive parts such as a Compact Disk (CD) drive or Digital Versatile Disc (DVD) drive, the strength of the walls enclosing the CD/DVD drive need to substantially resist deflections to prevent damage to the CD/DVD drive. As an example, in some of today's portable computers, a deflection of more than ½ millimeter around the CD/DVD drive can damage the sensitive parts of the CD/DVD drive. The ability of housing to sufficiently resist such deflection is becoming increasingly difficult as base housing become thinner and provide industrial design features. As an example, in the case of a portable computer, one test that can be applied to test deflection is that a base housing must not deflect more than 1 millimeter when put under a 10 lb. force.
Thus, there is a need for improved housings for computing devices.